It took 16 days for Capitol Hill honchos to stick another Band-Aid on our fiscal wounds. If they'd only huddled in a "smoke-filled room," though, it's widely believed that our nation would have sooner basked in bipartisan harmony. A couple of maroon leather couches, some tobacco and a bottle of scotch, and the Ted Cruz crazies in Congress could have more easily coalesced with their adversaries. Budget dilemmas would be solved. In the serendipitous smoke screen, all parties could orchestrate a universally adored healthcare scheme without boosting taxes, and maybe even start a kickball league for Republicans and Democrats to exorcise their differences like grown-ups.

From factual historic accounts to Beltway lore passed down through generations, nicotine nostalgia is synonymous with getting impossible jobs done by any means necessary. These aren't senatorial stoners we're talking about—they're mature politicians who, like so many of us, struggle to make big decisions without crying like an infant. It's not a pretty process; as per the late William Safire's 1968 compendium, In The New Language of Politics: An Anecdotal Dictionary of Catchwords, Slogans, and Political Usage, these "smoke-filled" environs tend to be places "of political intrigue and chicanery."

If there's ever been a crunch in which the voting public could endorse a shady back room deal—even root for one—it was during this most recent stalemate over the debt ceiling and such. Even prior to the government shuttering, columnists and armchair pundits alike were pining for representatives to revisit the foggy chambers of old. Sure, some would just like to corral the bastards in one place to gas them, or to watch Obamacare opponents develop lung cancer. Most references, though—like Zeke Miller of Time's "Bipartisan Call To Bring Back The Smoke-Filled Room" in August—implied that even fierce rivals are bound emerge from the clouds in cahoots.

On the assumption that smoking greases governmental gears, we identified key moments in political history that seemingly led to the smokeless standoff before us. Even with another asinine impasse ending, it's clear why so much tension mounts these days.

1787: The "smoke-filled room" in its prime

It's hardly a secret that our Founding Fathers were a degenerate pack of wastoid alcoholics. John Adams is said to have started on tobacco before his 10th birthday; George Washington's habitual hemp use, though exaggerated in pop culture, was the real deal. As for their ability to simultaneously smoke, drink, and get shit done … according to the addiction and recovery resource The Fix:

Records reveal, in the days before the Founding Fathers signed the document in 1787, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention found themselves at a Philadelphia tavern—where, for lack of a better phrase, they partied their asses off. The bar tab included: "54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer and seven bowls of alcoholic punch." By the calculus of addiction expert and author Stanton Peele, that's "more than two bottles of fruit of the vine, plus a few shots and a lot of punch and beer, for every delegate."

1920: The "smoke-filled room" becomes the popular benchmark for successful negotiations

According to Safire's history, it was in smoke-filled rooms that party bosses hand-selected candidates "in cigar-chewing session." "This sinister phrase," he wrote in his political dictionary, "is usually attributed to Harry Daugherty, an Ohio Republican who supported Senator Warren Harding for the party's presidential candidacy … Though he later denied having said so, sources confirmed to the Associated Press that Daugherty said the deadlock would be broken when some twelve or fifteen men, worn out and bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, will sit down about two o'clock in the morning, around a table in a smoke-filled room in some hotel and decide the nomination." The ensuing controversy stemming from this clandestine session at Chicago's Blackstone Hotel during the 1920 Republican convention left a stain on the lexicon, but as President Harry Truman would point out years later, "the 'smoke-filled room' was nothing new but Harding's nomination dramatized the tag and made it stick."

1994: The anti-smoking wave hits DC

The Clinton Era would prove devastating to Big Tobacco, libertarians, and all federal employees who enjoy leaving work each day smelling like an ashtray. With healthy living all the rage, Congress entertained a number of measures to clear the air. Success was slow to come on some fronts due to resistance among Senate Republicans, but even a handful of otherwise libertarian-leaning members pulled in favor of a 1994 ban on smoking in buildings that house federally funded children's programs. By the mid-'90s, more than 15 agencies had banned indoor smoking.

1997: The Clinton White House wages war on Washington smokers

Though renowned for his ability to reach across the aisle, President Bill Clinton may have sabotaged the peace process for future dealmakers with his second term executive order to outlaw smoking in all federal buildings. Though he stopped short of banning smokers from congregating within 50 feet of government premises—as was proposed in an early draft of the directive—Bubba buttered the slippery slope by granting agency directors power to consider and impose such restrictions as needed.

2006: DC enacts citywide smoking ban

The milestone 2006 ban on smoking in DC applied to virtually everyone but members of Congress, many of whom—including notables like the cigar-chomping Barney Frank and then-new House Speaker John Boehner, a well-known cigarette hound—continued to puff in peace. Anne Kornblut of the New York Times remarked, "In a time when the 'smoke-filled room' is more metaphor than fixture, its literal incarnation in Congress can seem almost quaint." Nevertheless, as the cell phone camera era crept upon us and Hill paparazzi put out calls for pics of politicians smoking, cigarette stigmas only increased, while our country grew farther apart.

2012: The birth of the Nicorette-filled room

If anybody is responsible for stubbing out the prospect of striking balance in a smoky atmosphere, it was probably Barack Obama, a former and admitted addict himself. Speaking on C-SPAN last year about the President's previous debt limit talks with House Speaker Boehner, Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward called out the POTUS for being just about the lamest back room agent in the history of politics:

"They're having these private meetings in the White House—what Boehner calls the Merlot and Nicorette meetings," said Woodward. "Just a week before that, [Boehner] goes down to the White House, and they have a meeting on the patio off the Oval Office, and as Boehner says and Obama confirmed when I interviewed him, Boehner's having merlot and smoking a cigarette, and the President is having ice tea and chewing a Nicorette to keep him from going back to smoking."

Woodward goes on to say that while Boehner and Obama often begin the negotiation process, "what intervenes is politics." It's a hard statement to deny. To be fair, though, while Obama is the biggest party pooper yet, the tide turned against smoking long before his tenure. Safire wrote that the "era of air-conditioned hotel rooms has blown away most of the literal meaning [of the "smoke-filled room"], but the symbolism makes the phrase current and useful." Of course, he never anticipated a commander-in-chief who chews nicotine gum.

Chris Faraone is the News + Features editor of DigBoston. His new book, I Killed Breitbart, drops 11.12.13.